poetry

  独酌 春草如有意 罗生玉堂阴 东风吹愁来 白发坐相侵 独酌劝孤影 闲歌面芳林 长松尔何知 萧瑟为谁吟 手舞石上月 膝横花间琴 过此一壶外 悠悠非我心 Spring grass must feel tenderness To sprout in the Jade Hall’s shade East wind blows in sadness White hairs invade even as I sit Drinking alone … Read More

  寄远 本作一行书 殷勤道相忆 一行复一行 满纸情何极 瑶台有黄鹤 为报青楼人 朱颜凋落尽 白发一何新 自知未应还 离居经三春 桃李今若为 当窗发光彩 莫使香风飘 留与红芳待 I meant to compose a single line To convey my thoughts of you Lines have followed one after another The paper fills leaving so … Read More

  Where a shell like an ear on the sand anticipates autumn’s arrival, and in the half- ruined shrubbery of summer relics, catches its trace. Between cigarette packs and syringes, broken stems bend, and on the wide western river, last … Read More

  on a loop inside me. And all day long I am writing you letters. I tell you: I want to be the stone that grinds mustard. All that power. Passing the time this way, the evening undresses slowly. From … Read More

  my tears bloom yarrows streaming down my cheekbones, fan out disks of pollen that you flock to like fruitful coins you will never spend on your own parched gullet—callous, your proboscis hardened to a regurgitating mirror. instead, you pay … Read More

  The body, a mitten full of bees. A drawer of angry brooches.The glass half-empty, and I emptied it. A message in a bottle that says you must change your attitude. Oh, world, we are both so broken. Maple pods … Read More

  Once is the number of times someone loved me. I saw my only love through window screens. I only saw my love. Through window screens, A noticing the way of others’ bodies. In noticing the way of others, bodies … Read More

  rain at the window. the searching arms of garden bamboo smear their flat leaves across the glass with each push of wind. my neighbor’s truck starts up in the alley, eight-cylinder roar, engine howling alone & unmoving in the … Read More

  after the police report, i walked home over frost-killed camellia blooms, thick and meaty underfoot like severed red hands. this isn’t a story about all that. i’m thinking instead about cornwall, the village and the old house, the walled … Read More

  Southern Black Superstitions remind me that it is bad luck to leave any hair in a comb or brush. After I’ve oiled my hair, I take the knotted brown ball, the size of a quarter, to the front left … Read More

  [corrido under a fort myers palm]   Flea market girl handed me a flyer for a big norteño brass band festival going down next weekend, here at Ortiz, featuring the “original, world-famous Banda el Limón”— trumpets from the fairgrounds’ … Read More

  [new thorns, 2020]   Pull the thorns from this borderline ’til barbed wire runs smooth against a palm, ’til coils of concertina fold back inside the accordion with a sigh. Write the crime story of this borderline & paper-plane … Read More